A St. Cloud man is accusing a south Orange County company of negligence after one of its "peeler machines" cut off his penis in an industrial accident last year.

Edgardo Toucet Echevarria, 44, was injured Jan. 13, 2010 at Future Foam Carpet Cushion after he removed a "foam core" from a machine with a steel blade that is used to cut blocks of carpeting foam, according to a new lawsuit.

He was not trained in operating the machine and the maneuver he performed at the request of supervisors activated the equipment, the suit alleges.

Officials with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Future Foam on 10 serious violations stemming from the January 2010 incident, spokesman Michael D'Aquino said.

OSHA, the federal agency charged with investigating workplace injuries and deaths, proposed fines of $42,500. D'Aquino said Future Foam is contesting the citations.

The suit also claims employees had improperly removed a protective guard from the machine.

The medical status of Echavarria, who is referred in the lawsuit as Edgardo Toucet, is not known. He did not return calls to the Orlando Sentinel this week.

"The surgically sharp steel blade sliced through Toucet's pelvis cutting off his penis and testicles while virtually cutting his body in half," the lawsuit states.

Echavarria claims that Future Foam "had a duty not to behave in a manner that was virtually certain to result in death or injury to workers."

"Future Foam was aware of prior instances in which workers had suffered injury or death due to insufficient, tampered with, or missing protection on this type of machine," the lawsuit states. "[The company's] maintenance and repair staff had failed and/or refused to properly upgrade the guarding."

The lawsuit also includes a negligence claim against Baumer of America, the company that manufactures the peeler machine.

It is unclear if a complaint was filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with investigating workplace injuries and deaths.

Legal documents show that in addition to the negligence claims, Echevarria is seeking punitive damages of more than $15,000 for disfigurement, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, medical expenses, loss of earnings, "virtual certainty," strict liability, and loss of earning capacity.

His attorney, Gene Odom of Brandon, was unavailable for comment.

Officials at Future Foam and Baumer did not immediately return calls to the Orlando Sentinel.

Records show Future Foam is based in Iowa, but has companies across the country, including the subsidiary in south Orange County off Gemini Boulevard. Baumer is a German company with offices in New Jersey.

By Walter Pacheco, Orlando Sentinel

1:59 p.m. EST , February 16, 2011

Remember the 1994 "hot coffee lawsuit" in which a jury awarded an elderly New Mexico woman nearly $3 million (later appealed and settled for an undisclosed sum) because she was injured by a cup of java at a local McDonald's?

Enter the "hot nacho cheese lawsuit."

A Chula Vista. Calif. couple filed suit against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts this week, claiming their 4-year-old son received severe burns during dinner at Orlando's Magic Kingdom last March. According to the family's San Diego-based attorney, Sean Cahill, Isaiah Harris was injured at Cosmic Ray's Starlite Cafe when a paper cup of scalding nacho cheese splashed on his face after he'd grabbed a food tray to keep from falling out of an unsteady chair. The suit claims the child suffered "permanent scarring, pain and suffering" as a result of the burns, and his parents, Michael and Maria Harris, suffered "serious emotional distress

"The cheese should not have been that hot," said Cahill. "Nobody has a reasonable expectation that it be served at a temperature causing immediate and severe burns on contact."

When asked for comment Friday, Disney issued the following statement: "It's unfortunate when any child gets injured. We just received notice of the lawsuit and we are currently reviewing it."

The hot nachos suit is the second filed against a Disney park this week. On Monday, a quadriplegic visitor to Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. claimed Disney violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not having adequate evacuation procedures for visitors with mobility disabilities. Jose Martinez of San Pedro, Calif. says Disney left him in his wheelchair in the "It's a Small World" ride for 40 minutes after the ride had stalled and other guests had been evacuated during a visit in November, 2009.

While waiting for help, the Orange County Register reports, Martinez suffered from dysreflexia, a medical condition that can cause death if untreated. "It feels like an ice pick going through your temples," Martinez said. The pain was exacerbated "especially when you couple that with the continuous, 'small world' music in the background."

Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown told the Register company officials had yet to see the lawsuit.

"Disneyland Resort is accessible to guests with varying needs, including those with mobility disabilities. If it is necessary to evacuate an attraction, we have procedures in place for all guests," Brown said in a statement.

Posted Feb 11 2011 10:42PM

By Laura Bly, USA TODAY

The National Labor Relations Board and an ambulance services company have settled a complaint about the firing of a woman who had criticized her supervisor on Facebook.

The board's Hartford, Conn., regional office filed a complaint against American Medical Response last October, arguing that negative comments posted on Facebook by an emergency medical technician, Dawnmarie Souza, were protected speech under federal labor laws. American Medical Response, based in Connecticut, said it fired the woman because of complaints about her work, according to the Associated Press.

The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but workplace reforms were detailed.

The Associated Press reported that Souza would not be returning to work at the company.

Souza and officials at American Medical Response were unavailable for comment Monday.

Under the settlement with the federal board, American Medical Response has agreed to change its policy that barred workers from criticizing the company or its supervisors on websites, on blogs and in online communication with one another, the board said in a statement.

American Medical Response will also revise a policy that stated employees could not talk about the company in any way on the Internet without permission, the board said.

In 2009, using her home computer, Souza wrote a profanity-laden message on Facebook about a supervisor who had told her a customer complained about her work, the Associated Press reported.

Souza's comments also referred to her boss using the company's code for a psychiatric patient, and some of her co-workers posted responses on Facebook expressing approval and support of her comment, the Associated Press said.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, employees are legally allowed to discuss the "terms and conditions of their employment" with their colleagues and others online and elsewhere, the board said.

The federal agency also said American Medical Response failed to provide Souza with union representation during interviews with her about the Facebook comments. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to no longer deny its employees union representation in such meetings, the agency said.

A Seattle woman struck by a Metro bus while she was in a crosswalk on Seattle's Alaskan Way in 2008 has reached a $4.5 million settlement with King County.

The settlement between Ree Ah Bloedow, 45, and the county was reached two weeks before the case was to have gone to trial.

"We deeply regret the incident occurred," said King County spokeswoman Rochelle Ogershok. "We think it was a fair settlement. Now the pedestrian will have the resources needed for her medical needs."

Bloedow's attorney, Jack Connelly, said the settlement was important because Bloedow lost her career as a staff attorney for the state Department of Social and Health Services because of the brain injury she suffered in the accident.

Bloedow was crossing Alaskan Way in January 2008 when she was struck by a mirror on the bus. Along with the brain injury, her arm was shattered. Connelly said the settlement will not only pay for needed medical care but also lost wages because she had to leave her job.

The lawsuit was filed in early 2009 and was set to go to trial Feb. 14.

The settlement is important, Connelly said, because Bloedow is unlikely to regain her mental faculties, and her career is gone.

"I appreciate the fact King County recognized the injury and its responsibility to her. She walked in a clearly marked crosswalk and the driver wasn't watching," he said.

The county admits it was negligent and accepts responsibility for the accident, according to a letter from the King County prosecutor.

It's not the largest settlement Metro has paid in an injury claim. A year ago it agreed to pay $7 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman severely injured when a Metro Transit supervisor's van struck her while she was riding a Vespa scooter to work.

By Susan Gilmore

Seattle Times staff reporter

A Travis County jury has awarded $6.2 million to a former Austin musician who, after drinking at a private party, was paralyzed when he dove into an underfilled apartment complex pool in 2005.

Jurors determined that the man, Jordan VanDusen, was 49 percent responsible for his injuries and the owner of Longhorn Landing Apartments was 51 percent liable for failing to close a dangerous pool or warn swimmers that water levels had fallen about 11/2 feet.

The division of liability means VanDusen, left a quadriplegic with limited use of his arms, would receive 51 percent of the $12.4 million in damages if the judgment stands. Jurors returned the verdict Monday night after two days of deliberations and a nine-day trial.

"We never, ever contested responsibility for Jordan," said Sean Breen, VanDusen's lawyer. "He admitted he made a mistake — a momentary, thoughtless mistake."

But swimmers also should be able to expect that an open pool is safe to use, Breen said. Instead, he said, managers of the apartment complex at 4700 E. Riverside Drive failed to close the pool even though employees noticed that water levels had dropped and even though state and city laws require underfilled public pools to be closed.

In addition, testimony showed that Aspen Square Management — which owned the apartment complex when VanDusen was injured but sold it in October — did not have appropriate safety procedures in place, Breen said.

VanDusen was a guitarist, singer and songwriter for the now-defunct band JVD who had moved from New York state to Austin with bandmates two years before the accident. A videotape, shot by a friend and played for jurors, showed a group roughhousing around the pool at 2 a.m. before VanDusen, then 23, dove into an area that should have been 4 to 41/2 feet deep but instead was 21/2 to 3 feet deep.

Jeff Ray, lawyer for Aspen Square, said the company will appeal the verdict.

Ray argued that VanDusen was solely responsible for his injury because the pool's depth was obvious, signs prohibited diving at the pool and VanDusen's judgment was impaired by alcohol. Blood tests after the accident showed VanDusen's blood alcohol level was 0.09, he said. The legal limit to drive in Texas is 0.08.

Breen argued that the apartment complex, marketed to college-age residents, condoned pool parties where alcohol was consumed, yet neglected to plan for associated risks.

But Ray noted that jurors, answering a separate question, also found VanDusen to be 51 percent responsible for negligence in causing his injury. "If a plaintiff is more responsible for causing the accident, the plaintiff receives nothing," he said. "So we believe there is a conflicting jury finding that we will appeal."

Ray also will ask District Judge Orlinda Naranjo to dismiss or reduce the award before Naranjo enters a final judgment, which typically takes about a month.

Since the accident, VanDusen has been living in New York, where Medicaid benefits are more generous, but hopes the jury award will let him return to Austin.

"I really enjoy it down here; a lot of my friends still live here, and I hate the cold and snow of New York," VanDusen said. "This means I'll have options and better care from doctors and therapists familiar with my type of injury."

Now 28, VanDusen hopes to continue writing songs by computer and recently purchased a harmonica "so at least I can play an instrument."

By Chuck Lindell

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

A Brooklyn man whose wife died of a heart attack after waiting more than 90 minutes for an ambulance during last month's blizzard will slam the city with a $20 million lawsuit on Monday.

Robert Davis said he called 911 around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 27 to report his wife, Claire Reed, 63, was experiencing chest pains.

Davis, 58, said he made a second call before 8 a.m. as the pains became worse. His wife was screaming she was having a heart attack during the followup call - cries the 911 operator must have heard, Davis said.

An FDNY report obtained by The News indicates medics were assigned to the call at 9:07 a.m. - 97 minutes after Davis said he first called for help.

The medics arrived at the couple's basement apartment on Cortelyou Road in Flatbush three minutes later, but Reed had already stopped breathing and had no pulse, according to the FDNY report. "If they got there on time, I think she would have had a better chance," Davis said.

The FDNY report notes the ambulance crew responded to the scene with lights flashing and sirens on. It also indicates that the nearly 2 feet of snow that had fallen overnight wasn't a factor.

The "conditions causing delay" section is blank - including the box labeled "weather."

A Fire Department spokesman declined to comment on the incident, citing pending litigation.

City officials have conceded there was a backlog of 1,300 calls for emergency service in the wake of the monster storm.

Mayor Bloomberg, who has come under heavy criticism for being absent while his commissioners bungled the city's response to the blizzard, demoted Chief of the Emergency Medical Service John Peruggia.

"A 1-1/2-hour delay to respond to a life-and-death situation is inexcusable," said Davis' lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who plans to notify the city of the wrongful death lawsuit Monday.

It's the second suit that attributes a blizzard-related death to the city's negligence. Last week the family of 75-year-old Laura Freeman blamed her death on a three-hour wait for an ambulance in Queens.

Davis, a guard who works for the Education Department, gave his wife mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while waiting for help. Medics and firefighters worked on Reed for 30 minutes before pronouncing her dead.

Adding to the indignity, Reed's body remained on the couch for a full day until a rep from the medical examiner's office arrived to verify her death was not suspicious. "I slept on the floor right beside my wife," Davis said.

Reed had suffered a disabling stroke five years ago. No autopsy was performed and her death was attributed to heart disease.

BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Jurors awarded $10.1 million in damages to the family of an overdose victim Tuesday, hoping the multimillion verdict strikes fear into other "pill mills" that have turned Houston into a national hub for prescription drug abuse.

"Our verdict shows how much our community is against these pill mills and wants things to change," said juror Lauren Simmons, after finding gross negligence led to the overdose death of Michael Skorpenske of Conroe.

Another juror, Tim Bammel, agreed, saying the verdict issued in 234th District Judge Reece Rondon's court should discourage others who might be improperly churning out the addictive drugs that killed Skorpenske.

Skorpenske, 54, died July 7, 2007, two days after his only visit to the Family Medi Clinic in The Woodlands where he received a prescription for three potent drugs: hydrocodone, xanax and soma.

He had sought help there for chronic pain he suffered from a motorcycle injury and a fall at a petrochemical plant.

The clinic's director, Dr. Maurice Conte, had prescribed this same drug combo — known as the "holy trinity" — at least 3,800 times between 2006 and 2007 at more than 17 pain area clinics that he then oversaw, records showed. But his prescription-writing came to an abrupt halt when he was forced to surrender his license to the Texas Medical Board just three days after Skorpenske died.

Conte, who repeatedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination during the four-day trial, was found grossly negligent and slapped with the stiffest penalty: $9.05 million.

The 72-year-old physician chose not to be present for the reading of the verdict, and his attorney, Thomas Swanson, declined comment.

The Skorpenske family's attorney, Tommy Hastings, commented on Conte's absence: "I don't think he has any remorse or compassion. The other two defendants expressed their sympathy about Skorpenske's death, but Conte took the Fifth even on that."

Hastings believes other pill mills will take notice, especially "if their only motive is profit and we can take that away."

Another defendant, Melissa Martin, was also found grossly negligent and ordered to pay about $745,000 in damages. She was an equal owner of the cash-only clinic along with her husband, Harris County sheriff's deputy Lewis Martin Jr., and a chiropractor, Michael Kabzinski.

Kabzinski settled out of court for an undisclosed amount before the trial started. The plaintiffs say they were unaware of Lewis Martin Jr.'s involvement until after the statute of limitations had run out.

The third defendant, Jimmy Moore, a recruiter who placed the doctor at the clinic, was ordered to pay the least, $85,000, because one of the 12 jurors did not believe his involvement met the test for punitive damages.

Skorpenske's 88-year-old mother, Augusta Jackson, who was a plaintiff along with her son's three children, was speechless after the verdict. Then her eyes teared and she said, "Maybe some of those pill clinics will shut down. Let's hope,"

Skorpenske's sister, Sandra Smith, referring to more than 1,200 pill deaths recorded in the last two years, says "the jury has given a lot of hope to other families of those who are

By CINDY HORSWELL

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- The families of two people killed in the University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting last year have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the university provost Dr. Vistasp M. Kharbari, the alleged shooter Dr. Amy Bishop and her husband James Anderson.

The separate lawsuits were filed today in the Circuit Court for Madison County by the families of Dr. Maria Ragland Davis and Dr. Adriel Johnson, both of whom died in the Feb. 12 shooting.

According to a statement from a public relations firm in California, the suits claim the the provost did not follow procedures that could have saved the lives of Davis and Johnson. Bishop is accused of opening fire in a biology department faculty meeting last February, killing Johnson, Davis and Dr. Gopi Podila and wounding three others.

Douglas Fierberg, a lawyer with Bode & Grenier in Washington, D.C., is representing the Davis and Johnson families. In today's statement, he said the provost was required to protect the staff from what happened at UAH.

"There are clear parallels between this case and Saturday's massacre in Arizona. We have learned from departmental emails that Dr. Bishop's severe mental instability was known by administrators, some of whom she had threatened, harassed and hounded following denial of tenure," Fierberg said.

"The University of Alabama Huntsville Provost had clear obligations under UAH regulations, and standards adopted by universities nationwide following previous high-profile massacres, to obtain intervention by university police and counseling services in order to protect staff and students before Dr. Bishop was allowed into a staff meeting where she gunned down her colleagues," he said.

The University of Alabama in Huntsville released a statement this morning in response to the lawsuit:

"The university expresses once again its deep regret for the loss of life and injuries that occurred as a result of the violent, criminal act carried out on this campus on February 12. While it is clear that blame for this loss must be placed squarely on the perpetrator of this horrible crime, the university has worked diligently to ensure that the families of our deceased employees receive all available work-related benefits.

"The university is saddened by the decision to sue Dr. Vistasp Karbhari and does not agree that Dr. Karbhari, or anyone associated with the university, could have predicted or prevented this random act of violence. The university will vigorously defend this lawsuit and is confident that the outcome will exonerate Dr. Karbhari."

The federal government will pay $2.3 million to settle a medical malpractice lawsuit involving a child born with neurological damage at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.

U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar approved the settlement between the Justice Department and the Holweger family of Virginia Beach, according to a court filing made public Monday.

Scott and Michelle Holweger sued the United States early last year, seeking $15 million in damages. The couple alleged that inadequate care at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center caused their child to be born with developmental disabilities.

The government denied any malpractice and admits no wrongdoing in the settlement.

In 2006, Michelle Holweger checked into the hospital with severe cramping in her lower abdomen. She was 35 weeks pregnant, according to the lawsuit. She was moved to a triage room and connected to a fetal heart monitor, which showed abnormalities indicating the fetus was under stress, the suit says. Instead of notifying a doctor, the papers say, the staff left Holweger for more than an hour without any intervention.

About 2-1/2 hours after she was admitted, doctors performed an emergency cesarean section. The doctors determined that the placenta had detached from the uterine wall, causing a loss of oxygen to the fetus, the suit says.

The baby girl was born pale and limp, with respiratory failure and a slow heart rate, the suit says. She was intubated and later transferred to Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.

The girl's "neurological injuries are extensive, severe and permanent," the suit says. "She is severely delayed in all areas of development." The damage, including cerebral palsy, will be lifelong.

The case was set for trial Dec. 7, but the parties had been working on a settlement for at least two months, the court records show.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, which defended the suit, declined to comment Tuesday. Attorneys for the Holwegers did not return phone messages.

The judge's settlement order states that the Holwegers' attorneys will receive about $675,000 in fees and expenses, $54,000 will go toward medical bills, and the remaining $1.57 million will go into a trust set up to care for the child.

A San Diego car dealership will have to pay a portion of the $14.4 million awarded to the sons of San Diego couple who were killed in a 2006 vehicle accident in Arizona, but the exact amount was unclear Wednesday.

Attorney William DelHagen, who represented Mossy Ford in the wrongful-death lawsuit, said the net jury award is about $8.5 million, after calculating offsets and reductions based on other defendants who were found to bear some fault in the accident.

But Robert Buccola, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said the amount was close to $11 million.

Attempts to obtain documents in San Diego Superior Court outlining the specifics of the Tuesday jury verdict were unsuccessful Wednesday.

Casey and Melanie Barber’s three young sons were plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against Mossy Ford and other defendants. Barber was driving his Ford E350 Sportsmobile van on Highway 98 near Page, Ariz., on July 31, 2006, when a tire-tread separation caused him to lose control of the vehicle, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

They contended in trial that Mossy Ford performed a faulty tire repair — instead of taking the tire out of service — that led to the rollover accident.

DelHagen said he argued in trial that the tire-tread separation was caused by the vehicle hitting an object in the road, not by the repair.

Buccola said the Barbers’ sons, who were 8, 5 and 3 at the time of the accident, now live in the Los Angeles area with their aunt and her husband.

By Dana Littlefield

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 5:22 p.m.

The diocese, which filed for bankruptcy in 2009 due to mounting sex abuse claims dating as far back as the 1950s, said on its website the average payout was about $750,000, far higher than the average in five comparable settlements.

An attorney representing the majority of the purported victims rejected the offer as "woefully inadequate" and said the diocese was misleading about the size of the offer.

"We're almost half way there to what a reasonable settlement would be," said Wilmington attorney Thomas Neuberger, who represents 98 people.

Payouts under the new offer would likely range from $75,000 to $3 million, depending on the severity of the alleged abuse, the diocese said on its website.

U.S. Roman Catholic archdioceses have collectively paid some $2 billion in settlements to victims since the priest sex scandals first erupted in Boston nearly a decade ago.

Neuberger criticized the Wilmington diocese for comparing its offer to five settlements obtained in bankruptcy court.

Neuberger said from a legal standpoint a better comparison was the $660 million paid by the Los Angeles archdiocese outside of bankruptcy. The watchdog website BishopAccountability.org estimated the Los Angeles settlement at $780,000 per victim.

The Wilmington Diocese, with a Catholic population of about 233,000, increased its offer from around $55 million after a state jury found that St. Elizabeth Parish owed purported victim John Vai $3 million.

Vai had claimed he was molested as a teenager in the 1960s by Francis DeLuca, a priest who was later defrocked.

Under the latest settlement offer, victims are required to agree to drop all legal action against the diocese and parishes, which are not part of the bankruptcy.

"Lawyers for some survivor-claimants have said that the parishes want to buy their way out of litigation cheaply. But a settlement fund of $74 million ... is hardly cheap," said a letter from Francis Malooly, the bishop of the Wilmington diocese.

Neuberger said the diocese and parishes combined have $1.7 billion in resources and said the victims had been working on a payout of $1.3 million on average with the prior bishop, who died in 2009.

The settlement was increased by contributions from outside the diocese, including $53 million from a Catholic foundation started 80 years ago by John Raskob, the builder of New York's Empire State Building.

The Wilmington diocese said its offer was higher than the average claims paid by five other dioceses in bankruptcy court settlements: Fairbanks, Alaska; Davenport, Iowa; Spokane Washington; Tucson, Arizona and Portland, Oregon.

Last week, Milwaukee's Roman Catholic archdiocese said it would file for bankruptcy due to the financial drain of unresolved lawsuits brought by purported victims of sexual abuse by priests.

The collective might of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a half-dozen other pro-business groups failed to convince the Nevada Supreme Court that Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. deserves another day in court.

In denying a request for another hearing, the court in an opinion published Thursday took the opportunity to clarify its July affirmation of a $30 million verdict against the tire giant, a verdict that came after a judge took away Goodyear's ability to defend a wrongful death lawsuit after she found company attorneys acted in bad faith and engaged in stall tactics.

The wrongful death lawsuit came after a deadly August 2004 rollover killed three people and severely injured another.

A Goodyear tire is alleged to have failed, leading to the crash, but the facts of the case were never presented to a jury. Instead, former District Judge Sally Loehrer sanctioned Goodyear by striking its answer to the lawsuit, leaving only damages for the jury to decide.

While the company's appellate attorneys argue Loehrer should have held an evidentiary hearing to determine how severe and how much damage the delays caused, six of the seven justices agreed the judge can impose such severe sanctions without a hearing if the sanction is "non-case concluding."

Critics of the sanction, including Justice Kris Pickering, the lone dissenter, call it the civil death penalty. Pickering in her dissent said Goodyear deserved a rehearing because it was not afforded fundamental due process protection at the District Court level.

The opinion, written by Justice Mark Gibbons, noted the case law that attorneys cited did not support their argument Goodyear was entitled to the evidentiary hearing as a matter of law, and reiterated Nevada law does not require the hearing if the sanction does not end in a dismissal.

Goodyear was supported in friends of the court briefs filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the National Association of Manufacturers; National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center; American Tort Reform Association; American Insurance Association; American Chemistry Council; and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Gibbons noted the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure and state case law clearly allow a judge to "strike a party's pleadings if that party fails to obey a discovery order or fails to attend his or her own deposition," which is precisely what Loehrer determined Goodyear had done.

Regarding due process, Gibbons said that when Loehrer held a hearing to discuss the discovery dispute in January 2007 the only witnesses were the lawyers.

"These attorneys are all officers of the court," Gibbons wrote. "Their conduct is governed by Nevada Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3, which addresses the standards of candor that a lawyer must have towards a court."

With these standards in mind, the "representations of the respective lawyers were sufficient for the district court to question the lawyers about the deposition and document production dispute without the necessity of cross-examination."

Goodyear provided attorneys for the plaintiffs 74,000 documents that were not labeled or sorted by category. Also, Goodyear representatives failed to attend their own deposition.

January 5, 2011

Pfizer Inc. must pay $1.5 million in damages to a pharmacist who developed breast cancer after taking one of the company's menopause drugs, a jury in Puerto Rico ruled.

Jurors in federal court in San Juan deliberated about 7 hours over two days before finding yesterday that Pfizer's Wyeth subsidiary failed to properly warn Helen Rivera-Adams and her doctors about the health risks of its Prempro menopause medicine, one of her lawyers said in an interview.

Rivera-Adams, suffering from the late stages of cancer, pushed ahead with the trial "to get the message out that this drug is dangerous," Michael Robb, one of her lawyers, said in a telephone interview today. "I don't know how many times Wyeth executives will have to hear that this drug ruins women's lives before they acknowledge it," he said.

"We are disappointed with the jury's verdict and believe there is no basis in fact or law for this decision," Christopher Loder, a spokesman for New York-based Pfizer, said in an e- mailed statement today. The company is weighing its legal options."

"Hormone therapy medicines are an important treatment option for many women with debilitating symptoms of menopause," he said. "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has regularly reviewed the benefits and risks of these medicines," he said.

More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth's sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, topped $2 billion before the release of the Women's Health Initiative, a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study.

Drugs Combined

Until 1995, many menopausal women combined Premarin, Wyeth's estrogen-based drug, with progestin-laden Provera, made by Pfizer's Upjohn unit, to relieve their symptoms. Wyeth combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill.

Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, completed its $68 billion purchase of Wyeth last year.

Pfizer's Wyeth and Upjohn units have now lost eight of the 15 Prempro cases decided by juries since trials began in 2006. The drugmaker got some of those verdicts thrown out after trial or had the awards reduced. It resolved some of the verdicts through settlements, while other decisions are on appeal.

Wyeth also has won dismissals of more than 3,000 cases before trial, according to court filings. The companies had won the last four Prempro suits to go to trial before Rivera-Adams's case.

San Juan Pharmacist

Rivera-Adams, 62, is a pharmacist in San Juan who owns her own drugstore, Robb said. She and her family had sought $8 million in damages over her Prempro-linked breast cancer, he said.

Jurors found the drug helped cause Rivera-Adams's cancer and that Wyeth officials didn't provide adequate warnings about the drug's cancer risks to her or her doctors, said Robb, who is based in Miami.

Rivera-Adams took Prempro for 19 months before being diagnosed with cancer in January 2002, according to court filings.

The case is Rivera-Adams v. Wyeth, 03-1713 (JAF), U.S. District Court, District of Puerto Rico (San Juan).

by Jef Feeley and Phil Milford- Bloomberg

A Delaware County woman who claims she was groped by Donald Duck at a Disney theme park may proceed with her case in federal court, a U.S. district judge has ruled.

April Magolon, 27, was vacationing at Walt Disney World in May 2008 with her fiancé and young children. With a child in her arms, she approached a cast member dressed as the notoriously feisty fowl and asked for an autograph.

Magolon, of Upper Darby, claims the man in the duck suit grabbed her breast, molested her, "and then made gestures making a joke indicating he had done something wrong."

She filed suit in December 2009 claiming the incident at Disney's EPCOT Center ruined her vacation and caused her severe physical injury, emotional anguish, and distress. The encounter left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, headaches, nausea, flashbacks, and a digestive problem, she said in the lawsuit. Originally filed in Common Pleas Court, the suit was moved to federal court in August.

Magolon's attorneys claim the incident was not isolated. In court papers, they say the episode was "one in a long line of continuing, long-standing, similar prior incidents" that the Walt Disney Co. has failed to address.

Disney said Magolon had filed suit against the wrong corporate division and asked the court to dismiss the suit or move it to Florida. The company's requests were refused last week by U.S. District Judge John R. Padova.

Padova ruled that Magolon's suit could proceed in Philadelphia because her fiancé and doctors were all in Pennsylvania. The judge also wrote that Disney was more likely to be able to afford the costs of litigation in Philadelphia than Magolon would be in Florida.

Magolon could not be reached for comment. A Disney spokeswoman said she could not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit states that in 2004, after a 13-year-old girl was fondled by a man dressed as Tigger in Magic Kingdom's Toon Town, authorities received 24 similar complaints. Michael Chartrand, who portrayed Tigger, was later acquitted of all charges.

By Sam Wood

Inquirer Staff Writer

Toyota is going to shell out $10 million to settle a lawsuit brought in the fatal crash that set off a safety scandal for the automaker, it is being reported.

An attorney says Toyota will pay to settle with the family of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer, who was killed along with three others, in August 2009. Toyota agreed to the settlement, according to the Los Angeles Times. He was killed after floor mats apparently jammed against the accelerator in a Lexus ES that he had borrowed from a San Diego-area dealership while his own car was being serviced. The car sped up and apparently couldn't be halted as a panicked passenger in the car related in a 911 call.

The attorney, Larry Willis, who released the amount of the settlement represents the car dealer, Bob Baker Lexus, which is yet to settle with the family.

The Associated Press says a Los Angeles judge denied a motion by Toyota and the plaintiffs to keep the settlement sealed. Toyota had 48 hours to file a stay with a California appeals court.

Toyota issued a statement saying it is disappointed that the amount of its settlement had been made public:

Unfortunately, Bob Baker Lexus, along with the Orange County District Attorney and several news organizations, fought to make the amount of the settlement public, and the court agreed to do so.

Indeed, Bob Baker Lexus already knew the terms of the settlement. However, Mr. Baker now wants the amount publicized in an apparent effort to shift the focus away from his dealership as he continues to litigate this case with the families.

In the statement, Toyota blamed the dealer for not having acted on a warning to remove floor mats in the vehicles after it became known they could jam against accelerators

By Craig Gustafson

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The family of an Oldham County teenager who collapsed and died after a recreational soccer game has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his doctor, claiming he failed to alert them to the teen's heart problems.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Jefferson Circuit Court, alleges that a 2006 physical showed that Bryce Turner had a heart murmur, which prevented him from playing on the Trinity High School soccer team until he was cleared by his personal physician, Dr. Carl D. Paige.

Paige, who has a practice in La Grange, did not tell Turner's parents that a test showed the teen had a thickening of his heart muscle, which "could be indicative of a life-threatening condition," or share with them a recommendation that the teen be tested again in a year, according to the suit, which names Paige and his office.In July 2006, Paige faxed a note to Joel Turner, Bryce's father, indicating he could play sports, but not mentioning the test findings. Turner went on to play varsity soccer at Trinity, where he achieved academic all-state honors before his graduation in 2007. Turner played two years of soccer at Chapman University in Orange County, Calif.

On March 16, 2009, Turner, 19, collapsed on a soccer field after playing an informal game at Chapman. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. The lawsuit said Turner died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, thickening of the heart muscle, which is a well-known cause of death for athletes.

"Patients and parents have a right to know about serious abnormal test results so they can make appropriate medical decisions about treatment, and here that didn't happen," said Hans Poppe, an attorney for the family.

Claims made in filing a lawsuit present only one side of the case. Paige did not immediately return a phone call to his office.

Turner was a member of the soccer team at Chapman, where he was in his second year, majoring in business administration with a minor in English. He was also a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the Bryce C. Turner Memorial Foundation, which encourages early detection and greater awareness of this heart condition in athletes, is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as a trial by jury.

By Jason Riley • jriley@courier-journal.com • December 16, 2010

A New York woman rendered a quadriplegic after a Cybex weight machine crushed her vertebra won a $66 million jury verdict that threatens to bankrupt the Medway company.

Cybex International Inc. said it's responsible for $49.5 million of the judgment in favor of Natalie Barnhard, 30, of Buffalo. The verdict in New York state Supreme Court was one of the largest personal injury awards ever in Erie County.

The company, which has less than $4 million in insurance to cover the claim, said it will "vigorously pursue" an appeal.

By Donna Goodison
Thursday, December 9, 2010

The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson Circuit Court, comes two months after the church issued a 546-page report documenting sexual or physical abuse involving its overseas missions between 1950 and 1990.

Most of the victims were identified as children of missionaries serving in Africa and Asia.

The plaintiff in the suit, Sean Coppedge, said he applauds the report and that he provided information and other help to the denominational commission that wrote it. But he said the denomination needs to be held accountable for failing to protect its missionary children.

It’s believed to be the first suit against the denomination in connection with abuse in the mission field in the latter 20th century — abuse that has now been documented in two extensive denominational reports in the past decade.

Coppedge said he hopes other victims also come forward to “find healing and justice.”

His suit focuses on events at the Methodist-Presbyterian Hostel, which was jointly owned by the Presbyterians and the United Methodist Church.

He said he was sexually assaulted at age 14 by an older, stronger boy at the boarding house in Kinshasa — the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then known as Zaire. Coppedge was staying there while his parents, Presbyterian missionaries, worked about 600 miles away in a remote station.

“On the night I was sexually abused I immediately informed the Presbyterian authorities, but little was done, even though they knew the perpetrator had abused at least one other person prior to me,” Coppedge said in an emotional news conference Monday at the Louisville office of one of his attorneys, Ann Oldfather.

“In fact, the senior Presbyterian employee at the boarding house told me to keep quiet about the matter, and soon the perpetrator was allowed to return to the boarding residence,” he said

The suit says that the denomination had reports of abuse at mission posts throughout the world before Coppedge’s 1988 assault and that it “knew or should have known … that its mission children were vulnerable to sexual abuse.”

The suit seeks damages for emotional distress, lost wages, counseling costs and other injuries.

In October top Presbyterian officials apologized to victims of abuse upon the release of the report by its Independent Abuse Review Panel, which documented 29 cases of sexual abuse of minors and one of physical abuse in the mission field.

That wide-ranging investigation was prompted by an earlier report.

A separate, independent committee reported in 2002 that a deceased missionary, William Pruitt of Dallas, had sexually abused 22 girls and women in the Congo and the United States from the 1940s to the 1980s — and that Presbyterian co-workers failed to act aggressively when they learned of the allegations.

The denomination responded to that report by adopting a series of reforms to its constitution in 2005, imposing such things as stricter requirements for reporting abuse to civil authorities and giving accusers more say in the disciplinary process.

Rob Bullock, director of communication for Presbyterians’ General Assembly Mission Council, said he couldn’t immediately comment until church officials had a chance to review the suit.

Coppedge, 36, called on the church to take stricter steps, such as advocating for more victim-friendly state laws regarding the time limits for bringing lawsuits and criminal charges. He also urged it to require that all volunteers be required to report abuse and undergo background checks.

By Peter Smith • psmith@courier-journal.com • December 13, 2010

Legal and public relations problems expanded Monday for Las Vegas nightclub and restaurant executive Michael Morton and his N9NE Group when they were hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit by a fired employee.

Leslie Culler, art director of the N9NE Group, charges in the lawsuit she was fired in July after eight years with the company because, in part, she refused sexual advances directed toward her by Morton and other male executives "and objected to all of the constant sexual harassment she had to endure at her work place."

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Las Vegas adds to the current drama at the N9NE Group, which runs popular restaurants and nightclubs at the Palms hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

Morton is entangled in litigation with Palms owner George Maloof Jr. over allegations Morton has mismanaged and stolen from their joint-venture restaurants and clubs.

One of the allegations of mismanagement was that Morton in recent years had hid from Maloof and N9NE Group investors a $460,000 settlement of a workplace discrimination lawsuit filed by black and Hispanic security guards; and that the joint-venture faced new discrimination allegations from Culler.

The joint venture, N-M Ventures; along with Morton’s Nine Group LLC (the N9NE Group), were named as defendants by Culler in Monday’s suit along with Morton, Morton’s longtime partner Scott DeGraff and N9NE Group executive Bronson Olimpieri.

Perhaps significantly, Monday’s lawsuit says: "Despite being documented as working for N-M Ventures LLC, plaintiff (Culler) was instructed to do projects for other Nine Group entities, as well as for Morton and his wife, Jenna."

Culler will likely be a witness in the Morton-Maloof litigation in which Maloof charges N-M Ventures employees like Culler did projects on the side that benefited Morton and his wife and Morton's new wine bar restaurant at Wynn Las Vegas -- all at the expense of Maloof.

Morton, who has denied the allegations of wrongdoing, claims Maloof and disgruntled N9NE Group investors are wrongly trying to remove him from their lucrative venture.

Mark Ferrario, one of Morton’s attorneys in the litigation with Maloof, said Monday he hadn’t seen the Culler discrimination lawsuit and therefore couldn’t comment on it.

Culler specifically charged in her lawsuit:

-- She was subjected to more than 200 instances of sexual harassment and discrimination by Morton, DeGraff, Olimpieri, N-M Ventures vice president of brand marketing and Culler’s immediate supervisor; and Michael Fuller, a former N-M Ventures executive. N-M Ventures officials have said Fuller was fired over an incident in which he tried to escort an underage woman into N9NE Group’s Moon Nightclub at the Palms.

-- DeGraff once told her, while on company property, that she should play tennis with him and that she should wear a skirt, but not panties or undergarments.

-- DeGraff, at N9NE Group’s Ghostbar, without permission touched her breasts and said he wanted to snort cocaine off of her breasts.

-- Morton, at a company holiday party, grabbed Culler, bent her over a sofa and in the presence of others spanked her so hard she was left with welts on her buttocks.

-- Morton, during a company director’s dinner, grabbed Culler and told her he wanted to "know what it would feel like to’’ have sex with her.

-- Morton, during a work-related birthday party at the Palms, grabbed Culler and tried to kiss her.

-- Morton and DeGraff, at work, set the air conditioner at a cold temperature in order to make Culler’s nipples hard.

-- At the Palms, a friend of Morton’s grabbed Culler’s wrists and "Morton brutishly grabbed the defenseless plaintiff’s breasts." Afterwards, Culler wept about what Morton allegedly had done and a friend of Culler’s reported the incident to N-M Ventures President Andrew Belmonti, but Belmonti did nothing to properly address the situation, the lawsuit alleges.

-- In another incident Morton grabbed Culler’s buttocks.

-- At N9NE Group’s N9NE Steakhouse at the Palms, Morton forced Culler, without her consent, to sit on his lap.

-- Olimpieri on a regular basis, alone and in front of other employees, offered Culler money to pull her pants down, bend over and expose her buttocks. "Plaintiff refused to participate in such degrading activities,’’ the suit says.

-- Fuller, another supervisor of Culler’s, told her that on a scale of 1-10 she was a 9, but would be a 10 if she didn’t wear a bra under her shirt. He once threw water on Culler’s white shirt so he could see her breasts through the shirt, the suit alleged.

"Plaintiff never encouraged, welcomed or consented to the sexual harassment or lewd and physical acts,’’ the lawsuit says.

Culler said in the lawsuit that while working at the N9NE Group, she was fearful of losing her job because previous employees who challenged Morton, DeGraff and other executives were fired without cause.

"Conversely, employees that engaged with sexual activities with Morton were rewarded with favorable treatment. Morton, during plaintiff’s employment, engaged in an intimate relationship with a hostess, who was a subordinate of Morton. Shortly thereafter, the employee was promoted to cocktail waitress," the suit charged.

Culler said in the lawsuit the real reason she was fired was because she was dressing more conservatively, she was trying to get pregnant and that plaintiff "was not fun" in defendants’ eyes.

Filed by Las Vegas attorney Andre Lagomarsino, the lawsuit alleges counts of hostile work environment/sexual harassment; unlawful discriminatory employment practices; retaliation for Culler’s refusal to participate in the sexually charged acts imposed upon her at work and because she was trying to get pregnant; intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and includes counts of assault and battery against Morton, charging, "Morton inappropriately touch plaintiff throughout her employment, and numerous times throughout her final two years with N-M Ventures LLC, in excess of 200 times.’’

The Greenspun family, owner of the Las Vegas Sun, is a minority investor in the Palms.

By Steve Green (contact) Las Vegas Sun

Abbott Laboratories and two other drugmakers agreed to pay $421.2 million to settle claims they overcharged the U.S. for medicines, the Justice Department said.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH's Roxane Inc. will pay $280 million, Abbott will pay $126.5 million and B. Braun Melsungen AG will pay $14.7 million. Boehringer and B. Braun are closely held. The settlements resolve civil claims that the companies inflated the average wholesale prices for drugs reported to the federal health programs Medicare and Medicaid.

The government reimbursed doctors and pharmacists at those higher prices, and the companies actually sold the drugs at a fraction of those stated prices, U.S. officials said. The scheme let doctors and pharmacists pocket more profits, and the drugmakers kept them as customers, U.S. officials said.

"This practice was widespread in the pharmaceutical industry -- so widespread in fact that average wholesale price, AWP, it was jokingly said, really stood for 'Ain't What's Paid,'" Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division, said today at a news conference in Washington. "Indeed, the only purchasers who paid the full inflated reported drug price were you, the American taxpayers."

The settlement resolves lawsuits under the False Claims Act, which lets private citizens sue on behalf of the government and share in any recovery. A Florida company that administers drugs at patients' homes, Ven-A-Care Inc., will get $88.4 million as whistleblowers.

'The Spread'

The difference between the inflated government payments and the price paid by health-care providers for a drug was known as "the spread," and profits for doctors or pharmacists increased as the spread widened, U.S. officials said.

"The government alleges that Abbott, Roxane and Braun created artificially inflated spreads to market, promote and sell the drugs to existing and potential customers," according to a Justice Department statement.

Roxane, a generic drugmaker based in Columbus, Ohio, said it settled the "expensive and disruptive litigation" and "at all times" complied with U.S. laws and regulations.

"The expense of protracted litigation adds to the cost of producing Roxane medicines and therefore impacts the competitiveness of our business," Roxane said in a statement.

Abbott spokeswoman Adelle Infante said in a telephone interview: "We continue to believe that we have complied with all laws and regulations and have entered into this agreement to eliminate the uncertainty associated with continued litigation."

The settlement won't affect fourth-quarter financial results and will be covered by reserves set aside earlier this year, Infante said. She declined to say whether Abbott had changed its pricing policies as a result of the case.

Abbott Shares

Abbott, based in Abbott Park, Illinois, fell 5 cents to $46.87 at 3:48 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Representatives of Ingelheim, Germany-based Boehringer didn't immediately return voice-mail messages left after regular business hours.

A person who answered the phone at B. Braun's headquarters in Melsungen, Germany, said no one was available to comment until tomorrow and hung up.

The U.S. intervened in a False Claims case against Roxane and filed a lawsuit on Jan. 18, 2007. The U.S. sued Abbott in May 2006, according to the Justice Department.

To contact the reporters on this story: Justin Blum in Washington at jblum4@bloomberg.net; David Voreacos in Newark, New Jersey, at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net.

By Justin Blum and David Voreacos - Dec 7, 2010 1:01 PM PT

Wilmington paid $875,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the widow of a decorated former Marine who was fatally shot more than four years ago by police investigating the Pagans Motorcycle Club, according to documents filed Friday in federal court.

Hale, a 25-year-old former Marine and member of the Pagans Motorcycle Club from Virginia, was sitting on the steps of another club member's Wilmington home when police surrounded him and stunned him with Taser guns before shooting him. Officers found a pocket knife and pepper spray in Hale's pants pockets after the shooting, although Hale did not display either weapon.

Witnesses including Fred Mixson, a contractor who was working next door, told The News Journal that Hale was seated, had just vomited and was shaking violently from three Taser blasts when he was killed. Mixson also said Hale posed no threat when Lt. William Browne shot him in the chest with three .40-caliber rounds.

According to the city's version released by communications director John Rago, state and Wilmington police were conducting surveillance in the 1400 block of W. Sixth St. when they saw Hale helping a woman load items from his friend's house into her car. There were no criminal charges against Hale, but police considered him a "person of interest" in their investigation into the club.

Officers were concerned that Hale would take the woman and her children hostage and decided to arrest him if he was seen alone outside the house, the city's statement said.

When officers got word Hale was on the steps, state and city police approached him shouting, "Police," and "Show us your hands," according to the city's account.

Hale was seated on a ledge next to the steps, with his hands in the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. He stood up and his hands were still concealed when officers approached, city officials said.

Witnesses at the time told The News Journal that Hale was chatting with the woman and two children at the top of a stoop. He remained seated on the third step from the top when officers approached, they said.

After the woman and children were out of the way, officers warned Hale a stun gun would be used if he did not show his hands, the city said. An officer fired his Taser but one of the two probes missed. A second officer then fired his Taser, hitting Hale's clothing but not penetrating his skin. Hale experienced some effect that caused him to rock back on the ledge on which he had been seated.

A Taser fires two probes simultaneously. One probe conducts a positive charge, while the second conducts a negative charge. If both make -- and maintain -- contact, about 1,200 volts will run through the body. If not, no electricity will be discharged, the city said.

When the effects seemed to be wearing off, a third Taser was fired at Hale, causing him to sit up -- or stand up, according to some accounts -- with his hands still in the pocket of his sweatshirt, according to police and civilian witnesses interviewed by Wilmington police, city officials said.

Single mother alleges that a sheriff's deputy touched her chest during a 2008 traffic stop, then followed her home and assaulted her in the driveway. The deputy faces a criminal trial in the incident as well as two others.

A single mother who alleged she was sexually assaulted by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy during a 2008 traffic stop was awarded a $245,000 settlement Tuesday.

The Downey woman said she had been pulled over after midnight in Paramount, and told she'd be jailed for drunk driving. But when the deputy returned to her driver's side window, he told her "she looked like a nice girl," according to her lawsuit, and said: "What are you going to do for me in order for me not to bring you to jail tonight?"

What followed was an alleged sexual assault that began in the woman's car and continued in her driveway. Deputy Mark Fitzpatrick is facing a criminal trial next year in connection with the incident and two others, according to interviews and records. He had a history of sexual misconduct accusations during his roughly two-decade career with the Sheriff's Department, authorities said.

Fitzpatrick, 41, has pleaded not guilty.

The Downey woman was driving alone when Fitzpatrick pulled her over. The armed deputy allegedly asked her if she had children, reminded her how much trouble she would be in and began shining his flashlight on her chest.

"Let me see your breasts," he said, according to the woman's civil complaint.

Soon after the deputy began touching her chest, the complaint said, another patrol car pulled up nearby. Frustrated, Fitzpatrick allegedly demanded that the woman lead him to her home.

Once there, she said she tried to "scurry into the safety of her home," but was cornered by Fitzpatrick. The deputy ordered her to pull down her leggings and raise her dress, so he could "get a better view," before he allegedly began sexually assaulting her, according to the lawsuit.

A car passed by and he grabbed her close, whispering in her ear that he "really likes her," according to the suit.

The lawsuit alleged that the Sheriff's Department was "deliberatively indifferent" to past allegations of misconduct against Fitzpatrick.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore rejected those claims, saying Sheriff Lee Baca "is not indifferent to any allegations."

Fitzpatrick has been relieved of duty pending the outcome of his trial, Whitmore said. Attempts to reach Fitzpatrick's attorney Tuesday were unsuccessful.

By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times

December 1, 2010